Musical Notation in the West (Cambridge Introductions to Music)

Description

Musical notation is a powerful system of communication between musicians, using sophisticated symbolic, primarily non-verbal means to express musical events in visual symbols. Many musicians take the system for granted, having internalized it and their strategies for reading it and translating it into sound over long years of study and practice. This book traces the development of that system by combining chronological and thematic approaches to show the historical and musical context in which these developments took place. Simultaneously, the book considers the way in which this symbolic language communicates to those literate in it, discussing how its features facilitate or hinder fluent comprehension in the real-time environment of performance. Moreover, the topic of musical as opposed to notational innovation forms another thread of the treatment, as the author investigates instances where musical developments stimulated notational attributes, or notational innovations made practicable advances in musical style. Cover Half-title page Title page Copyright page Dedication Contents List of
Figures List of
Tables List of
Musical Examples Preface 1
Introduction: Musical Notation as a Symbolic Language 2
Plainsong and the Origins of Musical Notation in the West The Earliest Neumes The Earliest Neumes: Directionality The Earliest Neumes: Grouping and Ligation The Earliest Neumes: Melodic Nuances The Earliest Neumes: A Common Ancestor and Its Dissemination Pitch Later Chant Notation Interlude 1: The Problem with Pitch 3
Polyphony and Rhythmic Notation The Rhythmic Modes The Rhythmic Modes: Proprietas et perfectio The Rhythmic Modes: Opposite Propriety and the Plica, Fractio et collectio, Individual Notes and Rests Six Modes or Two? Mensural Notation: Lambertus and Franco The ars noua Coloration and Proportion Developments of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries The Transition to Modern Rhythmic Notation in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries Rests and Note Names Interlude 2: Rhythm and Metre 4
The Transition to the Modern Era: Instrumental Music and Performing Indications Keyboard Tablatures Lute Tablatures The Adoption of Vocal Notation by Instrumentalists Figured Bass Notation Idiosyncratic Notation for Instruments Accidentals, Mode, Key and Signatures Dynamics, Tempo and Expression Interlude 3: The Score 5
Notational Nuance in the Twentieth Century and the Motives for Notational Innovation Performing Techniques Rhythm Pitch Aleatoric Notation The Tension between Composition and Performance, and Notational Innovation Coda: The Meaning of Musical Literacy Bibliography Index